The Shadow of the Rope

by E. W. Hornung

  CHAPTER XXVII

  THE WHOLE TRUTH

  "Have the ladies gone?"

  Langholm had ridden a long way round, through the rain, in order toavoid them; nor was there any sign of the phaeton in the lane; yet thesewere his first whispered words across the wicket, and he would notventure to set foot upon the noisy wet gravel without Mrs. Brunton'sassurance that the ladies had been gone some time.

  "And they've left him a different man," she added. "But what have youbeen doing to get wet like that? Dear, dear, dear! I do call it foolishof yer! Well, sir, get out o' them nasty wet things, or I shall have youto nurse an' all!"

  The kind, blunt soul bustled to bring him a large can of scalding water,and Langholm bathed and changed before going near the invalid. He alsofelt another man. The thorough wetting had cooled his spirit and calmedhis nerves. His head still ached for sleep, but now it was clear enough.If only his duty were half as plain as the mystery that was one nomore! Yet it was something to have solved the prime problem; nay,everything, since it freed his mind for concentration upon his ownimmediate course. But Langholm reckoned without his stricken guest nextdoor; and went up presently, intending to stay five or ten minutes atthe most.

  Severino lay smiling, like a happy and excited child. Langholm was sorryto detect the excitement, but determined to cut his own visit shorterthan ever. It was more pleasing to him to note how neat and comfortablethe room was now, for that was his own handiwork, and the ladies hadbeen there to see it. The good Bruntons had moved most of their thingsinto the room to which they had themselves migrated. In their stead wereother things which Langholm had unearthed from the lumber in his upperstory, dusted, and carried down and up with his own hands. Thus at thebedside stood a real Chippendale table, with a real Delft vase upon it,filled with such roses as had survived the rain. A drop of water hadbeen spilt upon the table from the vase, and there was something almostfussy in the way that Langholm removed it with his handkerchief.

  "Oh," said Severino, "she quite fell in love with the table you foundfor me, and Mrs. Woodgate wanted the vase. They were wondering if Mrs.Brunton would accept a price."

  "They don't belong to Mrs. Brunton," said Langholm, shortly.

  "No? Mrs. Woodgate said she had never noticed them in your room. Wheredid you pick them up?"

  Langholm looked at the things, lamps of remembrance alight beneath hislowered eyelids. "The table came from a little shop on Bushey Heath, inHertfordshire, you know. We--I was spending the day there once ... youhad to stoop to get in at the door, I remember. The vase is only fromGreat Portland Street." The prices were upon his lips; both had beenbargains, a passing happiness and pride.

  "I must remember to tell them when they come to-morrow," said Severino."They are the sort of thing a woman likes."

  "They are," agreed Langholm, his lowered eyes still lingering on thetable and the vase "the sort of thing a woman likes ... So these womenare coming again to-morrow, are they?"

  The question was quite brisk, when it came.

  "Yes, they promised."

  "Both of them, eh?"

  "Yes, I hope so!" The sick man broke into eager explanations. "I onlywant to see her, Langholm! That's all I want. I don't want her tomyself. What is the good? To see her and be with her is all Iwant--ever. It has made me so happy. It is really better than if shecame alone. You see, as it is, I can't say anything--that matters. Doyou see?"

  "Perfectly," said Langholm, gently.

  The lad lay gazing up at him with great eyes. Langholm fancied theirexpression was one of incredulity. Twilight was falling early with therain; the casement was small, and further contracted by an overgrowth ofcreeper; those two great eyes seemed to shine the brighter through thedusk. Langholm could not make his visit a very short one, after all. Hefelt it would be cruel.

  "What did you talk about, then?" he asked.

  A small smile came with the answer, "You!"

  "Me! What on earth had you to say about me?"

  "I heard all you had been doing."

  "Oh, that."

  "You know you didn't tell me, that evening in town."

  "No, I was only beginning, then."

  It seemed some months ago--more months since that very afternoon.

  "Have you found out anything?"

  Langholm hesitated.

  "Yes."

  Why should he lie?

  "Do you mean to say that you have any suspicion who it is?" Severino wason his elbow.

  "More than a suspicion. I am certain. There can be no doubt about it. Apure fluke gave me the clew, but every mortal thing fits it."

  Severino dropped back upon his pillow. Langholm seemed glad to talk tohim, to loosen his tongue, to unburden his heart ever so little. And,indeed, he was glad.

  "And what are you going to do about it?"

  "That's my difficulty. She must be cleared before the world. That is thefirst duty--if it could be done without--making bad almost worse!"

  "Bad--worse? How could it, Langholm?"

  No answer.

  "Who do you say it is?"

  No answer again. Langholm had not bargained to say anything to anybodyjust yet.

  Severino raised himself once more upon an elbow.

  "I must know!" he said.

  Langholm rose, laughing.

  "I'll tell you who I thought it was at first," said he, heartily. "Idon't mind telling you that, because it was so absurd; and I thinkyou'll be the first to laugh at it. I was idiot enough to think it mightbe you, my poor, dear chap!"

  "And you don't think so still?" asked Severino, harshly. He had not beenthe first to laugh.

  "Of course I don't, my dear fellow."

  "I wish you would sit down again. That's better. So you know it is someone else?"

  "So far as one can know anything."

  "And you are going to try to bring it home to this man?"

  "I don't know. The police may save me the trouble. I believe they are onthe same scent at last. Meanwhile, I have given him as fair a warning asa man could wish."

  Severino lay back yet again in silence and deep twilight. His breathcame quickly. A shiver seemed to pass through the bed.

  "You needn't have done that," he whispered at last.

  "I thought it was the fair thing to do."

  "Yet you needn't have done it--because--your first idea was right!"

  "I'll tell you who I thought it was at first," said he,heartily.]

  "Right?" echoed Langholm, densely. "My first idea was--right?"

  "You said you first thought it was I who killed--her husband."

  "It couldn't have been!"

  "But it was."

  Langholm got back to his feet. He could conceive but one explanation ofthis preposterous statement. Severino's sickness had extended to hisbrain. He was delirious. This was the first sign.

  "Where are you going?" asked the invalid, querulously, as his companionmoved towards the door.

  "When was the doctor here last?" demanded Langholm in return.

  There was silence for a few moments, and then a faint laugh, thatthreatened to break into a sob, from the bed.

  "I see what you think. How can I convince you that I have all my witsabout me? I'd rather not have a light just yet--but in my bag you'llfind a writing-case. It is locked, but the keys are in my trouser'spocket. In my writing-case you will find a sealed envelope, and in thata fuller confession than I shall have breath to make to you. Take itdownstairs and glance at it--then come back."

  "No, no," said Langholm, hoarsely; "no, I believe you! Yes--it was myfirst idea!"

  "I hardly knew what I was doing," Severino whispered. "I was deliriousthen, if you like! Yet I remember it better than anything else in all mylife. I have never forgotten it for an hour--since it first came back!"

  "You really were unconscious for days afterwards?"

  "I believe it was weeks. Otherwise, you must know--she will be the firstto believe--I never could have let her--"

  "My poor, dear fellow--of
course--of course."

  Langholm felt for the emaciated hand, and stroked it as though it hadbeen a child's. Yet that was the hand that had slain Alexander Minchin!And Langholm thought of it; and still his own was almost womanly in thetender pity of its touch.

  "I want to tell you," the sick lad murmured. "I wanted to tell her--Godknows it--and that alone was why I came to her the moment I could findout where she was. No--no--not that alone! I am too ill to pretend anymore. It was not all pretence when I let you think it was only passionthat drove me down here. I believe I should have come, even if I had hadnothing at all to tell her--only to be near her--as I was thisafternoon! But the other made it a duty. Yet, when she came thisafternoon, I could not do my duty. I had not the courage. It was too biga thing just to be with her again! And then the other lady--I thankedGod for her too--for she made it impossible for me to speak. But to youI must ... especially after what you say."

  The man came out in Langholm's ministrations. "One minute," he said; andreturned in two or three with a pint of tolerable champagne. "I keep afew for angel's visits," he explained; "but I am afraid I must light thecandle. I will put it at the other side of the room. Do you mind thetumbler? Now drink, and tell me only what you feel inclined, neithermore nor less."

  "It is all written down," began Severino, in better voice for the firstfew drams: "how I first heard her singing through the open windows inthe summer--only last summer!--how she heard me playing, and howafterwards we came to meet. She was unhappy; he was a bad husband; but Ionly saw it for myself. He was nice enough to me in his way--liked tosend round for me to play when they had anybody there--but there wasonly one reason why I went. Oh, yes ... the ground she trod on ... theair she breathed! I make no secret of it now; if I made any then, itwas because I knew her too well, and feared to lose what I had got. Andyet--that brute, that bully, that coarse--"

  He checked himself by an effort that stained his face a sickly brown inthe light of the distant candle. Langholm handed him the tumbler, and afew more drams went down to do the only good--the temporary good--thathuman aid could do for Severino now. His eyes brightened. He lay stilland silent, collecting strength and self-control.

  "I was ill; she brought me flowers. I never had any constitution--trusta Latin race for that--and I became very ill indeed. With a man likeyou, a chill at worst; with me, pneumonia in a day. Then she came to seeme herself, saw the doctor, got in all sorts of things, and was comingto nurse me through the night herself. God bless her for the thoughtalone! I was supposed not to know; they thought I was unconsciousalready. But I kept conscious on purpose, I could have lived throughanything for that alone. And she never came!

  "My landlady sat up instead. She is another of the kindest women onearth; she thought far more of me than I was ever worth, and it was shewho screened me through thick and thin during the delirium thatfollowed, and after that. She did not tell the whole truth at the trial;may there be no mercy for me hereafter if the law is not merciful tothat staunch soul! She has saved my life--for this! But that night--itwas her second in succession--and she had been with me the whole longday--that night she fell asleep beside me in the chair. I can hear herbreathing now.

  "Dear soul, how it angered me at the time! It made me fret all the morefor--her. Why had she broken faith? I knew that she had not. Somethinghad kept her; had he? I had hoped he was out of the way; he left her somuch. He was really on the watch, as you may know. At last I got up andwent to the window. And all the windows opposite were in darkness excepttheirs."

  Langholm sprang to his feet, but sat down again as suddenly.

  "Go on!"

  "What is it that you thought, Langholm?"

  "I believe I know what you did. That's all."

  "What? Tell me, please, and then I will tell you."

  "All those garden walls--they connect."

  "Yes? Yes?"

  "You got through your window, climbed upon your wall, and ran along tothe lights. It occurred to you suddenly; it did to me when I went overthe house the other day."

  Severino lay looking at the imaginative man.

  "And yet you could suspect another after that!"

  "Ah, there is some mystery there also. But it is strange, indeed, tothink that I was right in the beginning!"

  "I did not know what I was doing," resumed the young Italian, who, likemany a clever foreigner, spoke more precise English than any Englishman;that, with an accent too delicate for written reproduction, alone wouldhave betrayed him. "I still have very little recollection of whathappened between my climbing out of our garden and dropping into theirs.I remember that my feet were rather cold, but that is about all.

  "It was near midnight, as you know, and the room it happened in--thestudy--had the brightest light of all. An electric lamp was blazing onthe writing-table at the window, and another from a bracket among thebooks. The window was as wide open as it would go, the lower sash thrownright up; it was just above the scullery window, which is halfunderground, and has an outside grating. The sill was only the heightof one's chin. I can tell you all that now, but at the time I knew verylittle until I was in the room itself. Thank you, I will take anothersip. It does me more good than harm to tell you. But you will find itall written down."

  Langholm set down the glass and replenished it. The night had fallenwithout. The single candle in the farthest corner supplied the onlylight; in it the one man sat, and the other lay, their eyes locked.

  "I spilt the ink as I was creeping over the desk. That is an odd thingto remember, but I was looking for something to wipe it up with when Iheard their voices upstairs."

  "You heard them both?"

  "Yes--quarrelling--and about me! The first thing I heard was my ownname. Then the man came running down. But I never tried to get away. Thedoors were all open. I had heard something else, and I waited to tellhim what a liar he was! But I turned out the lights, so that she shouldnot hear the outcry, and sure enough he shut both doors behind him (youwould notice there were two) before he turned them on again. So there westood.

  "'Don't let her hear us,' were my first words; and we stood and cursedeach other under our breath. I don't know why he didn't knock me down,or rather I do know; it was because I put my hands behind my back andinvited him to do it. I was as furious as he was. I forgot that therewas anything the matter with me, but when I began telling him that therehad been, he looked as though he could have spat in my face. It was nouse going on. I could not expect him to believe a word.

  "At last he told me to sit down in the chair opposite his chair, and Isaid, 'With pleasure.' Then he said, 'We'd better have a drink, becauseonly one of us is coming out of this room alive,' and I said the samething again. He was full of drink already, but not drunk, and my ownhead was as light as air. I was ready for anything. He unlocked a drawerand took a brace of old revolvers from the case in which I put them awayagain. I locked up the drawer afterwards, and put his keys back in hispocket, before losing my head and doing all the rest that the police sawthrough at a glance. Sit still, Langholm! I am getting the cart beforethe horse. I was not so guilty as you think. They may hang me if theylike, but it was as much his act as mine.

  "He stood with his back to me, fiddling with the revolvers for a goodfive minutes, during which time I heard him tear his handkerchief intwo, and wondered what in the world he was going to do next. What he didwas to turn round and go on fiddling with the pistols behind his back.Then he held out one in each hand by the barrel, telling me to take mychoice, that he didn't know which was which himself, but only one ofthem was loaded. And he had lapped the two halves of his handkerchiefround the chambers of each in such a way that neither of us could tellwhen we were going to fire.

  "Then he tossed for first shot, and made me call, and I won. So he satdown in his chair and finished his drink, and told me to blaze across athim from where I sat in the other chair. I tried to get out of it,partly because I seemed to have seen more good in Minchin in those lastten minutes than in all the months that I had
known him; he might be abrute, but he was a British brute, and all right about fair play.Besides, for the moment, it was difficult to believe he was serious, oreven very angry. But I, on my side, was more in a dream than not, or hewould not have managed me as he did. He broke out again, cursed me andhis wife, and swore that he would shoot her too if I didn't go throughwith it. You can't think of the things he was saying when--but Ibelieve he said them on purpose to make me. Anyhow I pulled at last, butthere was only a click, and he answered with another like lightning.That showed me how he meant it, plainer than anything else. It was toolate to get out. I set my teeth and pulled again ..."

  "Like the clash of swords," whispered Langholm, in the pause.

  Severino moved his head from side to side upon the pillow.

  "No, not that time, Langholm. There was such a report as might haveroused the neighborhood--you would have thought--but I forgot to tellyou he had shut the window and run up some shutters, and even drawn thecurtains, to do for the other houses what the double doors did for hisown. When the smoke lifted, he was lying back in his chair as though hehad fallen asleep ...

  "I think the worst was waiting for her to come down. I opened bothdoors, but she never came. Then I shut them very quietly--and utterlylost my head. You know what I did. I don't remember doing half. It wasthe stupid cunning of a real madman, the broken window, and the thingsup the chimney. I got back as I had come, in the way that struck you aspossible when you were there, and I woke my landlady getting in. Ibelieve I told her everything on the spot, and that it was the lastsense I spoke for weeks; she nursed me day and night that I might nevertell anybody else."

  So the story ended, and with it, as might have been expected, theunnatural strength which had sustained the teller till the last; he hadused up every ounce of it, and he lay exhausted and collapsed. Langholmbecame uneasy.

  Severino could not swallow the champagne which Langholm poured into hismouth.

  Langholm fetched the candle in high alarm--higher yet at what itrevealed.

  Severino was struggling to raise himself, a deadly leaden light upon hisface.

  "Raise me up--raise me up."

  Langholm raised him in his arms.

  "Another--hemorrhage!" said Severino, in a gasping whisper.

  And his blood dripped with the words.

  Langholm propped him up and rushed out shouting for Brunton--for Mrs.Brunton--for anybody in the house. Both were in, and the woman came upbravely without a word.

  "I'll go for the doctor myself," said Langholm. "I shall be quickest."

  And he went on his bicycle, hatless, with an unlit lamp.

  But the doctor came too late.